Indicators:

• The establishment of a centralized comprehensive inventory

• The number and/or nature of new elements and/or methods that are incorporated into Canada's protected spaces tracking and reporting system

About the Target

There are currently thousands of protected and other conserved areas across Canada. Some are managed by federal, provincial, territorial, regional or municipal governments, others are directly managed or co-managed by Indigenous governments, and others are administered privately by individuals, land trusts, or other conservation organizations.

Federal, provincial and territorial jurisdictions in Canada collaborate to track information including the number and area of all recognized and conserved areas, including OECMs. Canada’s approach to OECMs reflects the standards of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and must meet specific criteria. OECMs play a critical role in protecting and maintain biodiversity and require a collaborative approach to meeting the objectives of Canada Target 1. Work is ongoing to ensure that protected areas and OECMs, including privately owned areas, are included in the national database. Some jurisdictions are actively collaborating with municipalities, private landowners, and conservation organizations to screen and submit recognized protected and conserved areas to the national database.

Tracking of this collective conservation effort across the country is done through the Canadian Protected and Conserved Areas Database (CPCAD), including data from the Québec Registre des aires protégées, and federal, provincial, and territorial partners. Both databases are used to populate “Protected Planet” – the World Database of Protected Areas. CPCAD was developed in collaboration with a broad range of partners, including leadership in its development by the Canadian Council on Ecological Areas. It was adopted as a pan-Canadian reporting tool through the Pathway to Canada Target 1 initiative and is now managed by Environment and Climate Change Canada on behalf of federal, provincial, and territorial governments. This important tool continues to be refined and updated to better capture and report on the protection of lands and waters in Canada. The data in CPCAD is currently provided primarily by provincial and territorial governments, working with conservation partners in their jurisdictions to account for these areas. Information from these databases is used for reporting on progress toward Canada Target 1 and helps to assess progress towards an ecologically connected network of protected and conserved areas. 

Canada Target 16 is linked with the following global Aichi targets under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020:

• Aichi Target 11 - By 2020, at least 17 per cent of terrestrial and inland water, and 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, are conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, and integrated into the wider landscapes and seascapes.

• Aichi Target 19 - By 2020, knowledge, the science base and technologies relating to biodiversity, its values, functioning, status and trends, and the consequences of its loss, are improved, widely shared and transferred, and applied.

2020 Final Assessment

As of 2019, it was estimated that most OECMs have not yet been identified.[i] Also, non-government protected areas continue to be added to the database. Over time, new methods (e.g., update of the ecological framework in 2014) and elements (e.g., including a field for OECMs) have been incorporated in the database as part of tracking protected and conserved areas. Continual improvements to data quality, in terms of spatial accuracy and completeness of attribute information are ongoing.

Given the above, it is not yet possible to say the inventory is comprehensive, therefore this target has been only partially met. On the other hand, progress is continuing and there is regular review and adaptive management of the database.

[i] Pathway to Canada Target 1 (2019) Accounting For Protected And Other Conserved Areas

Contributing Actions

Collaboration among Canada’s federal, provincial, and territorial governments has been ongoing and makes the tracking of protected and conserved areas across the country possible. Governments have been working with municipalities, land trusts, academic institutions, and others to more fully account for protected and conserved areas that had not been recognized to date.

Consistency between Canadian information and the World Database of Protected Areas has been improved greatly over the last 5 years.

The Pathway to Canada Target 1 initiative has produced the Decision Support Tool for reporting protected and conserved areas on terrestrial and inland waters in Canada. The tool is meant to help evaluate whether areas meet the definitions of “Protected Area” (PA) or “Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measure” (OECM). The tool is open and usable by anyone and the associated Screening Template allows users to undertake a structured evaluation of a site to see if it meets the criteria. The information provided through the tool enables evaluation of sites in their jurisdiction and supports reporting decisions to the Canadian Protected and Conserved Areas Database.